Category: History
Prompted by a weak rebuttal of David Graeber's Bullshit Jobs we look at the history of life insurance and the role played by 'actuarial science' in our understanding of human mortality.
Alex Leemon from Currently Speaking offers a slightly contrarian take on Australia's energy transition.
In the second part of this essay we look at some of the ways that public denial and public hysteria around homosexuality has influenced the military history of Britain, Germany and Australia.
A brief history of military masculinity from the Sacred Band to Frederick the Great.
Today on The Unravel we ask the question; Did 19th century sealers suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome?
Given this litany of disastrous invasions and bloody occupations, why do politicians continue to insist that their armies will be welcomed with open arms?
Despite the long history of ‘humanitarian interventions’ the idea that nations have an obligation to defend the rights of those beyond their own borders has only recently begun to gain acceptance.
The fallacy of liberation played a major part in inciting conflicts during the Cold War but realism's hindsight makes it hard to appreciate the initial idealism that accompanied these conflicts.
Case studies in strategic optimism from the Greco-Turkish War to the end of the World War II.
A brief history of the fallacy of liberation from the wars of the French Revolution to the end of the long 19th century.
Putin's disastrous invasion of Ukraine has revealed the indiscriminate nature of Russian propaganda.
Tracing the origins of 'life admin' from sacrificial servants, to human computers, chatbots and Potemkin AI.
As the Covid infections have ticked upwards and lockdowns have dragged on there’s been plenty of time to dwell on our current situation.
Wherein I draw tenuous connections between the current Coronavirus shemozzle and the great pandemics of the ancient world.
The police were the first Georgians I met. Arriving in the capital, Tbilisi, at ten to midnight there were police officers waiting on the tarmac.
Back in 2015 Amazon unveiled a promotional campaign for their TV adaptation of Philip K. Dick's famous novel The Man in the High Castle.
On a rocky stretch of coastline on Hawaii’s Big Island a group of marine biologists are studying the lifecycle of the octopus - a creature that lives fast and dies young.
I knew that Hawaii was part of America but I still didn't expect it to be so American.
On a cold day in December in 1964 three helicopters belonging to the Royal Dutch Navy set out across the north sea towards a tiny speck in the ocean about ten kilometers west of Noordwijk on the Dutch coast.
Studying Australian history often feels more like uncovering some sprawling conspiracy. Buried underneath all the accounts of white explorers, convicts, bushrangers, miners and diggers is a vast bedrock of black history. The more you dig the more connections you find but the full story always seems to remain hidden.